Arnstein
by tabbi-lea
Summary: Fluffy or domestic or something like that. One-shot. For Faberry Week - Scars. Quinn and a new friend bond over their scars.


"Aw, Quinn!" the blonde ambled slowly towards her girlfriend, taking time to inspect the cages she passed along the way.

"Yeah?" Rachel looked up at her with puppy dog eyes, adding her own brown pair to the many other sets in the room. Quinn didn't need to ask what the girl wanted, she simply rolled her eyes at the woman's antics. "You want him?" Rachel nodded and the blonde finally turned her head to face the dog in the cage in front of them.

He was scrawny, not quite sickly but it was obvious that he was a sickly thin not long ago. If not by the picture on the cage door, then by the way his rounded eyes were slightly sunken in. Despite the tired look in his eyes, there was a glimmer of hope in their glassy shine and a playful air shown in the wag of his tail. A brownish, blackish fur grew from his skin and his ears flopped over, folding about halfway to fall at the sides of his head. He was obviously adorable, but that's not what drew Rachel to him and Quinn knew it.

No, what made Rachel chose this dog had to be the scars that streaked the right side of his belly. A few straight lines, roughly five inches in length, where the dark fur had parted to show the dog's light skin. Those were topped with two marks, semicircles in shape, on the side of his neck. Also scarred into the animal for good.

Judging by the index card next to the picture from when he'd arrived at the shelter, the scars were from dog fighting. It seemed that the ring leader of these fights was arrested and the dogs had somehow gotten loose from their cage just the day before. When they found this one, he had been lying on the side of the road, apparently hit by a car and left to his own devices. The shelter and vet had felt too bad for him to put him down based off of his past and so they nursed him back to health. He'd never been anything less than a sweetheart, if not a tad hyper at times, and so they'd put him out for adoption as soon as he was healthy enough-that was nearly two months ago.

Quinn turned away from the card to study the dog once more and a small smile graced her features. She turned to her girlfriend, not saying a thing. A simple nod of the head with that smile still in place was all that Rachel needed to know. Quinn received a Rachel Berry grin and a tight hug in response. She pulled out of the embrace and took Rachel's hand, leading her to where the man on duty for adoption was sitting at the front desk.

"We'd like to meet one of the dogs," Rachel said to the man. When she told him the cage number he smiled and nodded, grabbing his keys and clipboard before following them to the cage of the dog they'd chosen. He let grinned as he opened the cage, stepping in and patting the dog on his head, closing the cage once he'd stepped in. "Hey buddy, maybe we've finally found you a home."

The women grinned at each other, moving to let the dog sniff their hand before they both got to their knees in front of him. He stood and took a few careful steps toward them. Rachel took that as a good sign and reached out to scratch his head as she introduced herself. He seemed to like that.

Quinn waited patiently and when Rachel was done, she let her hand move to his neck, just below his scars and she ran the pads of her fingers over the fur there, rubbing the spot gently. He seemed to like that even more and he moved even closer to Quinn, sniffing her face before licking a sloppy kiss along her cheek. The woman giggled giddily at the action and brought the other hand up to the other side of his neck, pulling him closer and rubbing his fur with both hands as he panted happily.

"Looks like you found his sweet spot," the worker said with a huff of a laugh. Both women nodded and smiled at him.

Rachel turned back to Quinn and watched on with her Rachel Berry grin as her girlfriend bonded with the pooch. She jokingly puffed out a breath, "Yeah he already likes you better than me."

Quinn stuck her tongue out at the other woman and then looked to their new friend, "Give kisses?" she asked in a friendly tone as she pointed at Rachel. The dog cocked his head for a moment before turning to Rachel and slobbering three huge kisses onto her face. The three humans in the cage giggled as he did so.

"Do you two have a name picked out?"

It took only a glance for them to confirm what they'd talked about earlier. Rachel's smile grew impossibly wider as she nodded with a simple word, "Arnstein."

The man nodded with a hint of a smile, recognizing the reference. He'd held it in for the duration of their visit to the shelter, but there had been an excited fan jumping excitedly inside of him when _the_ Rachel Berry had walked in on his shift. He'd seen her in all of her roles on Broadway but his favorite had been Funny Girl.

"Y'know, not many people even take the time to look at," he paused and let his smile return for a moment as he repeated the new name, "Arnstein." The soon-to-be pet owners frowned at the information and so the worker continued, "His scars tend to put people off."

Rachel's frown deepened but Quinn's, oddly enough, disappeared and was replaced by a smile. The confusion on Rachel's face faded, however, when Quinn simply looked at their new family member and lifted her shirt slightly to reveal the scars left on her ribcage from her accident during their senior year of high school. The dog, amazingly enough, seemed to inspect the marks as Quinn spoke. "That's okay Arnstein. I've got scars too." The woman said with a grin before she let her shirt fall in favor of using her hands to find Arnstein's sweet spots once more.

Rachel smiled her I Love Quinn Fabray smile this time, her heart melting at the interaction. She looked up to see the smiling man and reached her hand out. "Can we have those adoption papers now."


End file.
